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It's a Tag! It's a Tangle! It's an Amazing Mold Putty Piece! Yes! It's all those things and more!

I'm going to be a guest designer at the Anything But a Card challenge blog for August (mark your calendars for August 10th!).

Their theme for the August Challenge is "REPEATING Motifs" a.k.a. PATTERNS. This can be any craft or work of art that uses a repeat design. Anything from a Zentangle® tile to a patterned clay tile; a journal page with repeated designs to a piece of cast resin. Anything with patterns---as long as it isn't a card.

I used the Zentangle pattern, Hibred, Amazing Mold Putty and Amazing Mold Resin to create this unique tag--it looks completely different when viewed indoors and when viewed with the light behind it. Head over to the Amazing Mold Putty blog to find out how I did it!

Oddly, seeing the process was so simple, this took me longer than usual. It was the time it took painting around the words. With acrylic I could have painted them over the background. With watercolors, I couldn't.

Miscellaneous
I often review items that are distributed by Exaclair Inc. If you are looking for one of the items and can't find it, please check out the Paper Bistro. This is where Exaclair, Inc sells items that can't be found easily in the U.S.

I was playing with the Idealized Design technique from 'Zoltan Szabo's 70 Favorite Watercolor Techniques'. His version is much more simplified and abstract. This was my first try and I didn't get it quite right, so I kept adding things to try and make it look better.

I like it. For a first try, anyway. I like the technique too, though I don't think I'd aim to be quite as abstract as Zoltan's painting. You never know, though. Tastes change.

At first, I thought this week's work would be difficult. I am not into fashion. My idea of fashion is that an item of clothing is comfortable, covers all the important bits, and I won't cry if I get paint or other artsy stains on it. And it shouldn't cost much--my money is for food and art supplies, after all.

But then I decided that fashion shouldn't only be for people! I picked up one of my mother's Blair catalogs and found a blouse that had a pretty pattern and fit on the page. For those who are interested, I've written up my process below.

After cutting my fashionable blouse from the catalog, I glued it down with Decoupage medium. Once that dried I looked up some photos of foxes for reference, and lightly drew my lady fox.

Then I took a Pigma Micron pen and drew my fox.

Kuretake makes these sets of dual-tipped markers called Brushables. All the colors are coordinated, and each marker has a lighter and darker version of the same color. I used Butter …

I really came up empty on the week 28 prompt--Technology. After a week of wracking my brain, I flipped through my journal and noticed it had been about 8 weeks since I did a word-based page. Curious, I counted back and saw that there was 7 weeks between the last two word-based pages. Obviously, it was time for a word-based page!

A couple of things are different from my previous word-based pages, so I've pasted a little about my process below.

Technology is big news, so I decided to start with a layer of newspaper, pulled from the business section, on articles about some new technology. It's hard to see in the scan, but the text is more noticeable in real-life.

I used Decoupage medium because it's fairly easy to write over. I glued down strips and placed them with the text going in different directions so it would be more of a design element than actual text. In the long run, this didn't matter too much, because so much was covered. I hadn't decided what I wo…

Yesterday, I posted the latest page in my Journal52 art journal, explaining how Robert Burridge's video of reductive pear painting changed my work. I had so much fun painting reductive pears that I wanted to do more (it's addictive, lol).

I was given a sheet of Schut's Pigment Oil Painting paper to try out. It's a canvas paper. I don't paint with oils anymore, so I decided to see how it fared with watercolor and acrylics.

Using Manganese Blue Hue, Raw Sienna, Hansa Yellow Medium, and Quinacridone Magenta, squirting each in turn directly on the page and used a small house painting hogbrush to spread the paint. Then I used an Interference Violet to carve out the pear.
I love the way the paper kept the brush strokes, giving the piece a wiry texture. It's more pronounced in real life than in the scan. The interference color was more opaque than usual. Normally, it's so transparent you can barely see it, but I think the sizing kept it from being absorbe…

So, I'm still busy with several projects that have an end of month deadline. Not wanting to put much exploration or energy into this page, because I need both for my other projects. I hesitated to go with negative painting because I've been doing that so much lately.

But, then, I was passing by the pears in the grocery store, and I suddenly thought--why not work with a nostalgia based specifically around negative painting!

Years ago, I saw this video of Robert Burridge painting pears. This was before I had ever heard of negative (aka reductive) painting, and his 1 minute video wowed me. It comes to mind every time I see pears, and I still think 'wow' whenever I watch it. It makes me feel nostalgic to think about it, because that one minute had a great impact on my work going forward.

Because the technique is so simple, but so effective. Literally, you can do a painting like this in minutes.

With this ATC-size painting, I had a little extra paint to use up and I was playing with wet-in-wet and admiring how smoothly the color flows off the new brushes I recently bought. Cheap Joe's had 40% off on their Legend series Kolinsky Sable brushes--how could I resist? I just wish I could have afforded to buy a complete set. I settled for one round (size 6) and one flat (1/2 inch). Just those two ran $40 at 40% off! Not cheap, but I've been saving my pennies for a while just for such an occasion.

But let me tell you--the brush does matter. It's much easier to control your backruns, and your brush keeps it's point. You can paint much longer without picking up more paint or water.

I suspect the Legend series isn't top of the line. But they are leaps and bounds over the synthetics I have. Now I just need to get one or two of the better synthetics so I can compare. Maybe a Da Vinci or Escoda. Maybe for Christmas, lol! Maybe.

This is another watercolor I did in my watercolor class while playing with the Tao of Watercolor style. I was plopping Phthalo Green into wet spots, and it looked like water to me. Next thing you know it was a Koi pond.
I seem to be into painting Koi at the moment.

My watercolor class has ended, but I enjoyed it so much that I signed up for the one that starts on July 29!

I had a difficult time with this prompt, because I was working on three other projects, two with deadlines, and I didn't really want to stretch my creative attention any further. So I just went with layers and negative shapes, which I've been using a lot of late, and sort of let it happen as it would. If anyone is interested, I did take some photos of my process which I've posted below.

I squirkled some color onto the page with Sharpie Brush Tips. The orange was placed for a sense of flow, but wasn't necessarily meant to indicate the placement of fish.

I glazed over the page with a thin layer of Metallic Green Acrylic Paint.

I added strips of washi tape at random around the page. At this point, I'm adding layers of texture, but still not planning where my fish will go. I put very little thought into this piece--I just used techniques I'm familiar with and let it happen. (However, I later found that I had been following a certain flow--thats the result of …

My life as a Zentanglist has been severely curtailed by my wrist problems. The motion of drawing lines is what seems to hurt most, and all those tangles I've cranked out over the last few years is probably a big contribution to the problem (see what happens when you are an overachiever? Moderation is ALL things).

Nonetheless, once in a while, I just HAVE to tangle. It's in my blood now, lol. I try to keep it small and, alas, not as dense as I love to do.

This was done with Faber-Castell Big Brush, and gellyrolls on Aqua Fabriano Tiziano.

I've mentioned in the past, my strange reluctance to create mandalas. I don't quite understand it, because I love looking at them, and truly admire those who draw and paint them. Perhaps, I'm just not ready, and will someday have the sudden urge to paint nothing but mandalas.

Meanwhile, I wanted to make a gift for someone that loves mandalas. I decided to go against my own inclinations and do up a book of them for her. As you might expect, me being me, my mandalas sort of aren't mandalas. so I'm calling them 'Sortalas'.

Since the book has three sets of covers, it doesn't really have a beginning or an end. The sewn binding is loose enough that you can have any one of the booklets at the top, and there really isn't a top or bottom. That makes the whole thing kind of circular.

I didn't have much time for painting while I was at the Oregon Coast. Unwisely, I had brought my good watercolor brushes with me, so I didn't want to let the children use them and could only paint while they were out. That was okay though. The gray whales were particularly active and we had a spectacular view, so instead of painting I was whale watching.

I did manage to get three quick pieces done. These took about 15-20 minutes, if that, including the time for drying and techniques.

I used salt to get the foamy, misty look in this seascape study.

For this second one, I was showing my niece how to do some wet-in-wet techniques, deciding what I was doing after I'd let colors mingle on the page.

This last one was a lesson in how much difference the paper makes. I used Arches 300 lb for the first two, and this last was done on Strathmore Aquarius II, a much softer, less rough surface than the Arches. The color is less brilliant, and tends to blend more on the paper. I …